1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system having a client-side terminal (for example, a portable telephone) and a sound data delivering server that are communicable with each other for delivering a sound data (for example, a melody for announcing an incoming call (hereinafter called “an incoming call melody”), which is reproduced by the client-side terminal at a predetermined timing (for example, when the portable telephone receives a call), from the sound data delivering server to the client-side terminal.
2. Description of the Background Art
In accordance with the development of communication technique in recent years, portable telephones, mobile computers, and others utilizing the wireless technique are becoming widespread as one of the communicable client-side terminals. On the other hand, as a service that these client-side terminals can receive, a sound data delivering service (referred to as incoming call melody requesting service in the case of portable telephones) is also spreading widely.
Generally, in these services, a user of the client-side terminal can select a desired sound data from numerous sound data prepared in a sound data delivering server. Further, the sound data delivering server is configured to deliver a selected sound data to the client-side terminal and to charge a fee to the user of the client-side terminal.
However, in the above-mentioned service, when the sound data is delivered to the client-side terminal, the delivered sound data is registered in a non-volatile memory of the client-side terminal, whereby one of the sound data registered in the client-side terminal is automatically erased. For this reason, the above-mentioned service is not fully satisfactory to the user if the user of the client-side terminal eventually feels that the music reproduced on the basis of the newly delivered sound data is not preferable or if the user feels that the music reproduced on the basis of the erased sound data is more preferable.
Therefore, the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 11-127262/1999, for example, is constructed in such a manner that the delivered sound data is not immediately registered in the non-volatile memory but, instead of this, the delivered sound data is stored in a volatile memory to be capable of being subjected to trial listening (reproducible) and, when a predetermined key operation is carried out in accordance with the result of trial-listening, the sound data is registered in the non-volatile memory.
However, in the above-mentioned prior-art technique, the sound data for trial-listening (trial-listening sound data) and the sound data for registration (regular sound data) are not differentiated, so that even if the user of the client-side terminal wishes the sound data to be delivered for trial listening, the user is charged for the fee every time the sound data is delivered to the client-side terminal. For this reason, if the result of trial listening is not preferable for the user, the above-mentioned prior-art service is not fully satisfactory to the user. Therefore, one of the objects of the present invention is to provide a system, a method, a delivering server constituting the system, a client-side terminal which is substantially a computer as well, and a computer-readable recording medium, in which the user can carry out the trial-listening of the delivered sound data without being charged for the fee (or by being charged for a fee less expensive than in the case of properly purchasing the sound data).